so gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
We get a lot of reports from this thread. A lot of it is just a series of people yelling at each other over arguments that have been rehashed hundreds of times since the end of the recent Volume. And I get that the last Volume - and RWBY in general, really - has some controversial moments that people will want to discuss, argue about, debate, etc.
That's fine. We're not going to stop people from doing that, because that's literally what the point of the thread is. However, there's just a point where it gets to be a bit too much, and arguments about whether or not Ironwood was morally justified in his actions in the recent Volume, or if RWBY and her team were in the right for withholding information from Ironwood out of distrust, or whatever flavor of argument of the day descend into insulting other posters, expressing a demeaning attitude towards other's opinions, and just being overall unpleasant. That tends to happen a lot in this thread. We want it to stop happening in this thread.
So! As of now the thread is in a higher state of moderation. What that means is that any future infractions will result in a weeklong boot from the thread, and repeated offenders will likely be permanently removed. So please, everyone endeavor to actually respect the other's arguments, and even if you strongly disagree with them please stay civil and mindful when it comes to responding to others.
In addition, users should refrain from talking about off-site users in the thread. Bear in mind that this does not mean that you cannot continue to post tumblr posts, for example, that add onto the discussion in the thread, with the caveat that it's related to RWBY of course. But any objections to offsite users in the thread should be handled via PM, or they'll be treated as thread violations and infracted as such.
Thanks to the Grimm Campaign and the novels, we know have a fuller picture of the four Academies and their headmasters. Namely, an idea of their relationships and one thing stands out to me. Ozpin,...
I found this one interesting and fairly agreeable save that I feel it kinda beefs up Glynda too much when she mostly seems to just grouchily do whatever Ozpin wants.
I found this one interesting and fairly agreeable save that I feel it kinda beefs up Glynda too much when she mostly seems to just grouchily do whatever Ozpin wants.
Oh not denying that, Ironwood is surrounded by enablers who let Ironwood do all their thinking for them, Glynda meanwhile basically runs the school, I mostly just noted I don't find her all that will to engage Ozpin except to agree with him.
Oh not denying that, Ironwood is surrounded by enablers who let Ironwood do all their thinking for them, Glynda meanwhile basically runs the school, I mostly just noted I don't find her all that will to engage Ozpin except to agree with him.
Only because she trusts him. Still questions things at times and is more then willing to call people out on shit.
Gotta wonder how she would of reacted is she was there for story time with Jinn.
Only because she trusts him. Still questions things at times and is more then willing to call people out on shit.
Gotta wonder how she would of reacted is she was there for story time with Jinn.
I disagree, it feels more like she just grumbles but does whatever he wants while going after anyone who disagrees with him, but that's just me.
Apparently the books kind of implied she knew less than Ironwood or Leo so I wonder if she'd have been more stung by the lack of trust.
I don't know about that. She does usually end up going along with him, but there's at least an actual back-and-forth to it, which IMO is the important part. She asks questions about his decision-making and gives her own thoughts on things, and Ozpin doesn't just brush that aside but actually engages with her, voicing his reasons for doing things to convince her to go along with it.
Which is the key difference between having a proper right hand rather than just a higher-ranking lackey in this context; it's not that they're supposed to be insubordinate or constantly arguing with you, after all, it's that they're someone who can actually push you to defend your reasoning for doing something and thus force you to actually think about it for more than the literally-not-even-a-second Ironwood often takes to make big decisions and then stubbornly stick to them come hell or high water, without ever examining or questioning his own arguments.
Say what you will about Ozpin's decision-making, he's at least thought about the things he does, and is usually willing to give at least most of his reasoning for making them and to hear you out and engage with you if you disagree. Even if Glynda still ends up doing what Ozpin wants her to do 100% of the time, there's still real value in that nonetheless.
I don't know about that. She does usually end up going along with him, but there's at least an actual back-and-forth to it, which IMO is the important part. She asks questions about his decision-making and gives her own thoughts on things, and Ozpin doesn't just brush that aside but actually engages with her, voicing his reasons for doing things to convince her to go along with it.
Which is the key difference between having a proper right hand rather than just a higher-ranking lackey in this context; it's not that they're supposed to be insubordinate or constantly arguing with you, after all, it's that they're someone who can actually push you to defend your reasoning for doing something and thus force you to actually think about it for more than the literally-not-even-a-second Ironwood often takes to make big decisions and then stubbornly stick to them come hell or high water, without ever examining or questioning his own arguments.
Say what you will about Ozpin's decision-making, he's at least thought about the things he does, and is usually willing to give at least most of his reasoning for making them and to hear you out and engage with you if you disagree. Even if Glynda still ends up doing what Ozpin wants her to do 100% of the time, there's still real value in that nonetheless.
While I agree that is a good difference between a right hand and a lackey I can't really recall the two ever really have such a back and forth, maybe its been too long since I saw the earlier volumes?
I Burn may or may not be the only one of the original trailer songs to not get a part 2 yet - I think I remember This Time being labeled as "This Time (From Shadows Part 2)" in the Volume 5 credits, though that's not how it's labeled on Spotify now - so that would be cool to see at some point.
Sacrifice still feels pretty relevant thematically, so a follow-up song for it would have potential: maybe if/when Raven returns to the main plot?
Not sure that I want a "part 2" for Hero, but getting an "answer" song to it, like how Nevermore's lyrics ripped into those of Lionized, would be great.
This Will Be the Day and I May Fall are just perfect "to circle back to in the endgame" songs, so a part 2 for either of them would work very well, though just bringing the songs back as they are (as was already done with I May Fall in V3) would also be great. (While Until the End is a much more recent song, it might fit into this category as well.)
And I didn't initially see that you'd already included it in your post, but yeah, I'm the One definitely has potential, particularly if we do get an Emerald/Mercury heel-face turn: the original was "this is how I've been hurt, and how I can hurt you," so a part 2 could either go the route of "this is how I've grown" or of "I've been hurt, and I won't let anyone else be hurt like I was." Depends how their character arcs play out, I suppose.
One side benefit of getting Aura-fighter rules for D&D from the people that make the show is getting to compare those rules to what the characters in the show pull off, and get a sense of how the crew thinks they stack up. In this instance, if team attacks are a level 2 feature, then team RWBY were at least level 2 in Volume 2, or arguably even during initiation in Volume 1. The player-characters in The Grimm Campaign started the campaign at level 1 (and only just hit level 2 in the latest episode), despite all being graduated Hunters, some of which have already been in the field for a number of years (Pyke's pretty much freshly graduated, Asher's been in the field for nearly a decade, the other two are somewhere in between).
In other words, team RWBY were as strong and/or as skilled as graduated, professional Hunters midway through their first year at Beacon, at the latest. (It wound up being their only year at Beacon, obviously, but their level of training at the time is still a relevant gauge for "expected" prowess.) That's not necessarily new information - the main cast have already gone toe-to-toe with the adults on-screen - but it's still nice to get a mechanical point of comparison, to see just how far ahead of the curve they are. I'm looking forward to the full class mechanics getting posted.
Random thought that came to me at work: Weiss and the others will be fleeing the fall of Atlas when she gets a desperate call for help from Whitley. He and Willow are stranded at the mansion because their security noped out of there and they have no way to escape. Weiss faces a moral dilemma of saving them or risk everyone to go back and save her relatives. Weiss goes back because she remembers what Willow asked her to remember and that her fathers acts don't mean she can condemn her brother and mother too.
Atlas is falling apart end of the world style as the Manta speeds towards Schnee manor and arrives just as the manor starts crumbling. In her redeeming moment Willow shoves Whitley ahead of her and tells them to leave. "Weiss you reminded me what your grandfather used to say: A true Schnee should put others before themselves." The Manta flies away as Willow and the reflection of Nicholas's painting watches out the windows ignoring the wine for the first time in forever and the mansion collapses around her.
Cheesy I know but I feel like Willow had that line for a reason and this fits perfectly for the story.
Also random theory: We'll get the reverse of the end of v6 with the Manta fleeing Atlas with the burning ruins behind it.
Edit: Someone pointed out that a Willow sacrifice would undo her finally overcoming Jacques and in a way mean Jacques won in the end. So it's not as great an idea as I originally thought. Just cheesy and cliche. Willow surfing to help Whitley redeem the SDC name would be a much more fitting end I think.
One side benefit of getting Aura-fighter rules for D&D from the people that make the show is getting to compare those rules to what the characters in the show pull off, and get a sense of how the crew thinks they stack up. In this instance, if team attacks are a level 2 feature, then team RWBY were at least level 2 in Volume 2, or arguably even during initiation in Volume 1. The player-characters in The Grimm Campaign started the campaign at level 1 (and only just hit level 2 in the latest episode), despite all being graduated Hunters, some of which have already been in the field for a number of years (Pyke's pretty much freshly graduated, Asher's been in the field for nearly a decade, the other two are somewhere in between).
In other words, team RWBY were as strong and/or as skilled as graduated, professional Hunters midway through their first year at Beacon, at the latest. (It wound up being their only year at Beacon, obviously, but their level of training at the time is still a relevant gauge for "expected" prowess.) That's not necessarily new information - the main cast have already gone toe-to-toe with the adults on-screen - but it's still nice to get a mechanical point of comparison, to see just how far ahead of the curve they are. I'm looking forward to the full class mechanics getting posted.
I wouldn't put too much stock in that. One thing they stressed a lot in the RTX event was that leeway had to be given for the game to be fun and balanced to play. So things don't necessarily work in the show like they do in the game.
If this cave had been closed off before the Great War because of an avalanche — if the cave was too unstable to rescue those trapped miners — that meant the Dust had never been removed. This might be the last small repository of Dust in Vacuo. — Before the Dawn, page 273
But it all ended in the Vacuo campaign. Mistral and Mantle knew that if they could take the Dust mines of Vacuo, they would effectively cut off the supply of Dust to their enemy. It was to be a final devastating blow to Vale and Vacuo. — World of Remnant, "The Great War"
Mistral and Mantle depleted the Dust deposits they found in and around Paradise Oasis, and decided to abandon Vacuo rather than spend their ill-gotten gains looking for more deposits.
But just because Paradise Oasis had the largest recorded deposit of Dust in history, doesn't tell us how much smaller the second-largest was, or how many other deposits rivaled it for size.
Qrow's account tells us for a fact that Vacuo discovered new deposits, and built a mining industry capable of supplying itself and also a war-depleted Vale. Enough mines that Mantle and Mistral devoted all of their remaining resources to taking them for themselves again.
But does this contradiction stem from Velvet's grasp of history, or the writer's grasp of canon?
On page 28 of Before the Dawn, Professor Rumpole lectured her class about "the origins of the Dust trade two hundreds years ago", after the Battle of Haven convinced her to make the Great War the new focus of her lessons.
The Great War happened more than 80 years ago, and according to Qrow in "World of Remnant: The Great War", the war itself lasted only 10 years, but had been preceded by 100 years of rising tensions. So the Vacuan Dust trade began roughly 20 years before those tensions began to rise.
This pre-War Dust trade proved so successful that Mistral and Mantle came came. But this time, they faced a new, wiser, stronger Vacuo. This time, conquest would be too costly.
So instead, they offered Vacuo a devil's bargain.
"Mantle and Mistral... established a small presence in Vacuo territory years before [the Great War broke out]." — World of Remnant "Vacuo"
Vacuo City allowed the national Mistral Trading Company to build a Dust refinery within its walls; a five-story building made of concrete and steel. It only stands to reason that the other Great Kingdoms had more advanced refining technologies than Vacuo, and refused to share or sell their secrets.
So Mistral's national trading company offered to sell its services to Vacuan companies and customers. The MTC might have charged as high a price as possible, with no local rivals for quality. Or the MTC might have made use of Imperial Mistral's subsidizing support to act as a loss-leader, threatening to kill all local competition and buy them up when they folded.
Vacuo would get the last laugh when, as their opening act of joining the Great War, they drove the MTC and any Mantlean counterparts out of their city and off their land. All proprietary technology left behind in their facilities, Vacuo took for itself.
And while possession never confers mastery (redistributing farmland doesn't make the new owners as capable of farming as the old ones), we know that Vacuans developed a global reputation as "Resourceful Raiders", per the game card that Yang used to take Ruby's demolished, Atlesian fleet, and refurbish it for her own use.
But while Vacuo did find more Dust before the Great War, it's possible those deposits have run dry in recent years. At least the ones nearest to the capital.
Page 149 of Before The Dawn describes Vacuo thus: "Bricks and portable homes were the predominant architectural features – along with industrial decay, the old refineries and factories and warehouses abandoned by Dust companies from other kingdoms."
Left ambiguous is whether by "Vacuo", Sun was thinking of Vacuo City specifically, or the land of Western Sanus in general, or whether the writer remembered the difference. The book features enough old mining rigs and machines left out in the desert.
But as I just recalled, Vacuo is supposed to be renowned for scavenging and recycling. Why leave so many abandoned buildings and machines laying around instead of reusing them? Space should be a highly-valuable commodity within Vacuo City's walls, and steel has many uses.
Moreover, exactly how many foreign Dust companies did Vacuo allow inside their capital, and how much space did the people afford them, considering their painful history? And exactly how long ago were these other facilities abandoned?
A relatively recent bust in Vacuo City's Dust trade after the Great War might explain Coco, Velvet, and Yatsuhashi's attitudes regarding Vacuo's wealth, with conceptions of the past and present mingling and glossing over more fortunate periods of history.
Interacting with the RWBY fandom (or discussing RWBY with people outside the fandom) can be extremely frustrating at times. Especially the outright RWDE crowd. But at times posts like this one comes along and demonstrate how the fandom can be a fascinating and kind of horrifying look at peoples attitudes and beliefs.
If anything, the Tyrian-Clover-Qrow-Robyn fight makes things worse for me because it actually makes a decent amount of sense (regarding the cold, I mean. Not other aspects lol). Weiss tells us that you need aura to protect yourself from the cold and sure enough, these characters all have aura. They're also involved in a fight so even if their aura wasn't active due to the cold before, it definitely is now. I can believe that Qrow, Clover, and Tyrian, as powerful fighters, are all fine out in that tundra. Robyn's situation should be critical not just due to injuries she may have suffered from the crash, but also because she's unconscious (no aura) and lying in the snow. She's going to freeze to death, which to my mind just further supports Clover's "You need to stop fighting me so we can get her help" and further damns Qrow's "Nah. I care more about freedom than the life of an ally."
I mean sure there is the usual RWDE idiocy of whining about things that aren't really a problem (Weiss specified that it takes hours for the cold to kill, there are scenes showing people using Burn Dust to keep warm and Robyn was only lying out in the cold for a few minutes before being stowed onto a warm airship) but what fascinates and scares me is how this person can get all these facts together, line up the equations and then so thoroughly miss all the red flags that they should be seeing.
Yes Robyn's life is in danger. She is potentially injured and is at risk of suffering from hypothermia if she doesn't get to shelter or recover her Aura in time.
That is precisely why it is scummy and manipulative of Clover to hold her life hostage to pressure Qrow into letting himself be arrested.
Qrow who mind you had not committed any crimes at all when the order was put out for his arrest.
Qrow's only crime was being related to a whistleblower.
And again he was not being brought in for a police interrogation because the Atlas police/military wanted to ask him some pointed questions about his niece. He was not being brought in to talk with Ironwood so that Ironwood could convince him that Operation Sky High was the best idea and ask him to talk sense into his niece. He was not even being specifically brought in for temporary holding or being put under surveillance to ensure that he couldn't join up with his niece.
He (and 4 other entirely guiltless people*) was flat out being placed on a Atlas Most Wanted list and ordered to be put under arrest just because he happened to be related to someone who defied Ironwood. He wasn't even related to someone who broke the law, just someone who refused to follow the illegal orders of a military organization that she was not actually a part of.
If we look at this from Qrow's perspective his niece makes a panicked call to give a desperate warning about Ironwood suddenly and without warning doing a 180 and deciding to abandon the people of Mantle to die to the cold and the Grimm. That call is abruptly cut of for reasons that Qrow can only speculate on.
We the audience know that Ironwood pushed a button to jam their comms (possiboy with a backdoor he had installed on the phones he so "generously" gave them) but for all Qrow knows Ruby's call was cut off because Ironwood saw a child right in front of himself.
Then right after Ruby's attempt to blow the whistle is aborted under suspicious circumstances the ensuing eerie silence is broken by a Scroll.
But it's not Qrow's Scroll that's beeping because Ironwood sent him a message or is calling him to explain the situation. No, it's Clover's Scroll that's beeping because he just received orders for Qrow's arrest. Just orders mind. No warrants, no charges, no crimes, no nothing. All Qrow gets is a "you're under arrest" without a single word on what he is under arrest for. Not that any such things are required, everyone in that airship knows that Qrow isn't guilty of anything except being politically inconvenient.
Which brings me to what's so freaking creepy about that post that started all this: Qrow is the victim in this situation.
It's clearly not right for Clover to arrest him. He has no reasonable justification for arresting him beyond "because my boss said so" and said boss is a dangerously unstable dictator who at this point is perfectly willing to shoot a defenseless child because said child attempted to peacefully talk him into changing his mind.
Granted Qrow doesn't know that Ironwood has become that bad. But he also has no way of knowing if Ironwood is or is not even worse.
For all Qrow knows Ironwood intends to execute everyone on that wanted list, and maybe even any and all political dissidents as well.
There is absolutely no reason why Qrow should feel like himself, Robyn (who has now attempted to resist arrest and is therefore also on the wanted list) or his family are going to be safe if they turn themselves in and let Ironwood arrest them. And hell, if Robyn had been conscious (but unable to move/fight) then she would have absolutely told Qrow to kick Clover's ass and taken her chances with the cold.
Then here comes Clover. He looks at these entirely unreasonable orders and decides that the only thing to do is to follow them. He looks at Qrow trying to deescalate the situation by talking to Ironwood and decides that Qrow still needs to be arrested. He looks at Tyrian crashing the plane and Robyn potentially being on death's door and decides that the first and only priority should be to place Qrow under arrest (because he doesn't have to understand orders, he just has to follow them).
And there are people in this world. Real people who look at this situation and conclude that the problem is not that Clover is holding a woman's life hostage to arrest an innocent man, but that the innocent man refused to be taken in by such underhanded tactics. To these real people it apparently never occured to them that Clover could have simply let Qrow go, or at least suggested a temporary ceasefire to get Robyn some medical attention before resuming the fight elsewhere. Or that he could have decided to postpone Qrow's arrest to first deal with the dangerously unstable serial killer that just crashed their plane and is potentially on the loose**.
This stuff is actually kind of scary when you think about it. Because despite Qrow spelling out the fact that Clover was being manipulative and the show giving us plenty of context for why Clover was in the wrong there are so many people like this who seems to have completely fallen for Clover's manipulation and are utterly blind to how he's trying to coerce an innocent man into a potentially very dangerous/outright lethal situation.
And the scary part about that is that if these people can't recognize manipulation and gaslighting when it happens (and is pointed out as such) in fiction, then how incapable would they be of spotting abuse and manipulation happening in real life? A depressingly reoccurring theme in stories about real life abusers, gaslighters and manipulators is how quick people are to blame the victims and give the abusers a free pass and here we see how eager real people are to excuse fictional abuse even when there is a literal narrative that is clearly telling them who the bad guy is. How much quicker are these people to defend abusers in the murkier scenarios of real life, where the facts are so much harder to come by? Thinking about it is not giving me warm happy thoughts I can tell you that much.
As a final note can I just point out how utterly baffling it is that this person is simultaneously calling for the show to depict hundreds/thousands of people perishing from the cold while also calling Qrow selfish for not cooperating with the people who want to let tens of thousands of people perish in the cold? 🥶🥶🥶🤔
* Oh, and I just realized another way Ironwood's paranoia screwed things up in regards to Team ORNJ and the Lamp. Because Ironwood activated his Greek Gift and took away Team ORNJ's ability to communicate with their Scrolls they were unable to warn him, Team RWBY or even each other about Neo's attempt to retrieve the Relic. So combined with the Atlas soldiers covering for Neo so she could escape with the Relic later on Ironwood basically ended up helping Salem's agents retrieve the lamp twice over.
** And while it's not mentioned in that post it's telling that so many people like this person rage against Qrow for "siding" with Tyrian while ignoring how Clover effectively did the same thing several times beforehand by attacking Qrow every time Qrow turned his back on Clover to deal with Tyrian.
Oh, and I just realized another way Ironwood's paranoia screwed things up in regards to Team ORNJ and the Lamp. Because Ironwood activated his Greek Gift and took away Team ORNJ's ability to communicate with their Scrolls they were unable to warn him, Team RWBY or even each other about Neo's attempt to retrieve the Relic. So combined with the Atlas soldiers covering for Neo so she could escape with the Relic later on Ironwood basically ended up helping Salem's agents retrieve the lamp twice over.
* Oh, and I just realized another way Ironwood's paranoia screwed things up in regards to Team ORNJ and the Lamp. Because Ironwood activated his Greek Gift and took away Team ORNJ's ability to communicate with their Scrolls they were unable to warn him, Team RWBY or even each other about Neo's attempt to retrieve the Relic. So combined with the Atlas soldiers covering for Neo so she could escape with the Relic later on Ironwood basically ended up helping Salem's agents retrieve the lamp twice over.
Ummmm, no they did not. What that was was a case of adrenaline driving all four of them and in chases like that it is actually easy to lose sight of each other, especially in winding halls. Oh, and they still went back for him.
Ummmm, no they did not. What that was was a case of adrenaline driving all four of them and in chases like that it is actually easy to lose sight of each other, especially in winding halls. Oh, and they still went back for him.
Ya wanna know what grinds my gears?
People that claim there needs to be deaths in JNR or other allies for there to be stakes/dangers in the show.
Like....no we don't. You can still have stakes, danger, a tense atmosphere, etc without killing characters.
I feel both sorry for, and annoyed by people that seem to need bodycounts for there to be worth in the shows they watch.
Ya wanna know what grinds my gears?
People that claim there needs to be deaths in JNR or other allies for there to be stakes/dangers in the show.
Like....no we don't. You can still have stakes, danger, a tense atmosphere, etc without killing characters.
I feel both sorry for, and annoyed by people that seem to need bodycounts for there to be worth in the shows they watch.
The problem is how to do that without making the villains look incompetent. Remember, after the Battle of Haven, there was hate for all the villainous participants, some of which were because of how they were easily beaten (some off-screen), with some even wanting Cinder to stay dead. Even now, despite Cinder's actions causing the divide between Ironwood and RWBY extremely wide, she was still mocked for losing. Hell, for Adam, it had to take Blake easily forgetting she got over him in Volume 5 ("I got better things to do" vs. "WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING MEEEEE!?") for him to even be a threat again.
The reason why Volume 3 and Volume 7's tension and stakes were well placed was because the villains got what they wanted and the heroes only scraped by with minor victories with costs that heavily outweigh it. But most of all, the stakes have been raised extremely high. Volume 6 raised it high with the whole "unite humanity or we smite you" plot line, but then you have Volume 7 with "Thanos Salem comin' to Earth Atlas to fuck shit up." among other things.
People don't want characters to die because "we want stakes". The stakes are already too goddamned high. They want characters to die because it'd be payoff to the stakes being raised, much like how Volume 3 ended with such a blood bath of an ending because of the stakes that were raised throughout the first three volumes.
And what better way for there to be pay off than to kill off already established characters (since it'd be cheap to invent characters just to kill them off, look at the reaction to Sienna Khan's death).
Hell, for Adam, it had to take Blake easily forgetting she got over him in Volume 5 ("I got better things to do" vs. "WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING MEEEEE!?") for him to even be a threat again.
Congratulations, you don't understand the difference in context with those two encounters, with Blake having an army at her back in one and a set goal, as opposed to being alone in the wild with the fucker that abused her for years in the other.
I feel like this volume will be Salem's time to shine as the proper Big Bad so the other villains obviously won't measure up. But yeah I get it. These guys have been built up as the biggest threat causing some serious emotional and physical suffering to the heroes needs to back that up.
